Beaumont Brides Collection (111 page)

And once her conscience was clear she could concentrate on playing chicken with her own personal truck.

Professional virgin? I don’t think so, Diana.

Jack had the right of it. It might just be Gus’s lucky day. It might just be everyone’s lucky day.

*****

An hour later Jack, perched astride an old and somewhat battered bicycle, one foot on the ground was waiting for her to follow his example and Mel had suddenly lost all desire to sing.

‘You can ride a bicycle, Mel?’ he asked, as she hesitated.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t tried for quite a while.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he said, taking her swimming things and putting them in her basket, impatient to be off. ‘No one ever forgets. Just get on and push off. The minute you start it’ll come back to you.’

‘Will it?’ She pushed back her hair and regarded the machine with distrust.

He looked back over his shoulder and straightened in the saddle when he saw that she had made no effort to do as she was told. ‘What’s the matter?’

She gave an awkward little shrug. ‘The last time I was on a bike it was pink. And it had training wheels.’

‘Training wheels?’

His grin displayed a lot of teeth. Not a bit wolf-like, though. Rather nice, straight, white teeth. But then everything about the man gave an impression of the same well-groomed strength, of rock-steady reliability.

He had the look of a man you could turn to if you were in trouble. It was a look that had undoubtedly contributed to his success in the treacherous waters of the financial world. Well, he wouldn’t be getting his hands on The Ark at a cut price, knock down rate. Not this time.

And it would all seem like chance - he would never know, or at least he could never be sure - that she had had anything to do with it. So why was she shaking?

Her subconscious gave a hollow laugh.

‘How old were you,’ he asked. ‘Three? Four?’

‘What? Oh, four.’

‘Well, you’re a bit big for training wheels these days.’ He propped his own machine against the wall and came back to her. Thankfully, she prepared to abandon her own machine. Too soon. He took it from her, placed it firmly in the centre of the path and said, ‘Come on. You’ll soon learn.’

Melanie regarded the bicycle with loathing. ‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’ Just how far could it be to the other beach? ‘Why don’t we walk?’

‘Don’t be silly, Mel. Everyone should know how to ride a bike. It’s cheap, green-’

‘In London? With all those traffic fumes? I’ll stick to the underground, thanks, it’s safer.’

‘There isn’t any traffic here,’ he pointed out, taking hold of the handlebars and the rear of the saddle. ‘I won’t let you fall. Come on, climb aboard.’

‘You’re being horribly bossy.’

‘I’m allowed to be. I’m the boss.’ Jack regarded her with a certain detachment. No girl who had decided to make a fool of Jack Wolfe could be frightened of mere a bicycle. Could she? And if she was, maybe she should have a taste of what was in store for her. He grinned. ‘You’re not afraid are you, Mel?’

Absolutely petrified. Suddenly a runaway truck seemed safe by comparison. ‘You’d better run me through the basics,’ she muttered, unwilling to display her lack of courage in the face of something as unthreatening as self-propelled transport.

‘Put your right leg through there,’ he said, releasing the saddle so that she could do as she was told. He patted the saddle. ‘And your bottom on here.’

She placed her right leg as directed and slid up onto the saddle, balancing herself on tiptoes. ‘How’s that?’ she asked, looking up at him.

Such touching trust. Such innocent eyes.

‘You’re doing fine so far, Mel, but you’re going to have to take at least one foot off the ground and put it on a pedal if you want to actually go anywhere.’

‘I’m happy here,’ she assured him. ‘This is good.’

‘Well, it’s up to you of course. But you’ll get hot and uncomfortable if you stay there all day. And I thought you wanted to snorkel.’

‘I could do that in the pool,’ she said.

‘There isn’t anything to look at in the pool. This will be more fun.’

‘Says who?’

‘I do.’

For just a moment she thought she detected a note of something more than simple encouragement in his voice. What was it? Anticipation? Mel gave a little gasp and looked quickly down at her left foot, small, neat, sandaled in soft leather. She tried to lift it to the pedal; it remained firmly on the ground, refusing to co-operate.

‘You’d better remind my foot that you’re the boss,’ she said, with a slightly edgy little laugh, ‘it can’t have been paying attention.’

‘I can do better than that.’ Keeping one hand on the handlebars he bent and grasping her ankle, lifted her foot up onto the pedal. The bike wobbled and she squeaked nervously but he retrieved the saddle and held it easily, grinning at her as he stood up. ‘You see?’ he said. ‘It’s easy.’

‘As falling off a log.’ The foot on the pedal was shaking like jelly. In fact quite a lot of her was shaking like jelly, not least because of the way she was now cradled by his arms as he gripped the machine fore and aft, taking its weight. With her shoulder and arm and hip pressed close against him, staying where she was looked more and more attractive. After all, if they were going to play these dangerous games, they might as well do it in comfort, right here in the cottage. ‘Jack-’

‘Push off with your right foot,’ he instructed.

Oh, well. ‘You’ll hold me?’ she demanded. ‘You won’t let me go?’

‘Trust me.’

Trust him? Was he kidding? But he didn’t wait to see if she trusted him or not, giving her a firm push start before she could change her mind. The pedals went round, the wheels went round. Her right foot caught up with the free pedal and he released the handlebars, running alongside her as she gathered speed, still holding onto the saddle. She caught her breath, laughing as she half turned to him.

‘I can do it!’ she exclaimed. He wasn’t there. He was about twenty feet behind her, grinning with a self-satisfied “I-told-you-so” expression.

Melanie began to wobble. Then she gave a little scream as her foot slipped from the pedal. After that everything happened very fast. From a distance, the clipped glossy leaves and huge pink flowers of the hibiscus gave an impression of cushiony welcome. The cushion, she discovered to her cost as the bicycle tossed her into it, was stuffed with sharp little twigs.

‘You rat!’ she exclaimed, furiously, trying to push him away as, making no attempt to hide his amusement, he picked her effortlessly out of the bush, set her on her feet and dusted her off, examining her for damage. ‘You let go!’

‘You were doing fine without me. Are you hurt?’

‘Yes,’ she declared. ‘I’m scratched to death.’

‘Really?’ He looked her over, apparently unimpressed. ‘Well your vocal chords seem to have survived intact.’

As if to prove him right, she yelped as he plucked a leafy twig from the front of her vest. ‘Don’t do that!’

He broke off the slightly battered hibiscus and tucked it behind her ear. ‘Ready for another go?’

‘No.’ She glared at him and then at the bike. Her initial reaction had been more than justified.

‘No one is born knowing how to ride a bike, Mel. Everyone falls off. The trick is to get back on again, straight way.’ And he picked it up, holding it for her, apparently expecting her to do just that. No argument.

She approached the loathed machine with the utmost reluctance, but it had now become a challenge, something personal between them and she remounted without a word. For a moment he stayed with her, his arm behind her, his chest hard against her back until she was away, wobbling a little as she realized she was on her own, then as she picked up speed and steadied she gave a whoop of sheer exhilaration.

The path curved through a thick plantation of jungle-like vegetation, a mine-field of unexpected obstacles for the unwary.

A bright lizard shot out in front of her and she screamed. A couple of chickens squawked nervously and flapped furiously along the path in front of her desperate to escape but not quite sure how.

She would have stopped, but was having the same trouble as the chickens. Her feet and her brain were not connected.

‘Jack,’ she pleaded desperately as she began to wobble again. ‘How do I stop this thing?’

‘Use the brakes,’ he called, from his own machine a few feet behind her.

Brakes? She looked down at her feet. What brakes? He caught up with her as the path dipped towards the cove, grabbing for the back of her vest to slow her down.

‘The brakes,’ he repeated, guiding his bike alongside her as the path widened. ‘They’re on the handlebars. Just squeeze them gently.’ And suddenly her mind unlocked and she remembered, the bike slithering to a halt just inches before she ran out of path. She put a foot down, but her leg was shaking so much that he had to catch her. ‘Fast learner aren’t you?’ he said, holding her against him. She looked up and he was smiling. Not laughing at her, but truly smiling with eyes that crinkled up at the corners, a mouth that widened into tiny creases. ‘If there were any cars on this island I could be persuaded to teach you to drive.’

It was her turn to smile. ‘I don’t have any trouble with cars. They have a wheel at each corner and stand up all by themselves. I learned to drive when I was ten. Truly,’ she said, as she saw his disbelief. ‘Luke put blocks on the pedals of an old mini as a present for my tenth birthday and let me loose in the bush.’

‘Luke?’

‘My uncle. I passed my test first time.’ She snapped her fingers carelessly. ‘No problem.’

‘Only with bikes.’

I wish, she thought. ‘I broke my arm when I was little and no one made me get back on.’

‘That was a mistake.’

‘Well, I did tell you I was spoilt.’

‘So you did.’ And his look changed subtly, the smile no longer teasing, but searching.

The trembling had long since ceased, there was no good reason for her to continue to cling on to him no matter how much she might want to, so she stepped back, pushing her hair back from her face. She encountered the hibiscus and laughing awkwardly, removed it. It was as if she was thirteen, awkward, shy, out of her depth when a good looking boy smiled at her but wouldn’t make the first move because she was already famous.

‘Well,’ she said, twirling it between her fingers. ‘I can’t say I’ll be making a habit of it, but thanks for showing me how it’s done.’

‘Anytime, Cinderella.’ The thoughtful, penetrating look continued for a moment more, then he turned to the beach. ‘Well now, isn’t this something?’

For a moment she continued to regard his profile, but his face guarded his thoughts too well and she finally followed his gaze.

The beach was extraordinary.

Nothing like the long white beach that stretched endlessly in both directions in front of their cottage, the small horseshoe of sand was flanked on either side by strange natural sculptures of ancient boulders.

More huge rocks littered the beach, providing quiet shade.

And out to sea the sleek lines of a yacht slicing through the water half a mile or so offshore provided an elegant counterpoint to the blue of the sky and the sea.

It was idyllic. Quiet and peaceful, with none of the commercial razzle that usually went with a holiday resort, only a discreet bar beneath the wide shade of a thatched roof, and a stone built barbecue where locally caught seafood would be grilled in the open air at lunchtime. Both were deserted this early in the day.

Jack had been right when he had said this was paradise. ‘This is far more than something,’ she said, after a long pause. ‘But even paradise had its serpent.’ She turned to him. ‘Or in this case, wolf.’

For a moment Jack regarded her with irritation, almost as if he wanted to say something, but knew she would never understand.

‘You know, you have a beautiful mouth, Mel. There’s basically only one thing wrong with it. It just keeps on working when your brain has switched off.’ He propped the bikes in the shade of the palm grove and turned back to her. ‘Now, pick your spot, lie down and if you’re good I’ll rub your back with sun cream.’

She opened her mouth to protest, indignation rescuing her from that stupid tongue-tied awkwardness.

He stopped her by the simple expedient of kissing her. For a moment she went rigid, pushing against his chest with the flat of her hands. He simply hooked his arm about her waist and pulled her hard against him. Then, with the other hand framing her face, he took his time about teaching her the only use for her mouth he was prepared to countenance.

And as the warmth of his mouth began to stoke up her internal thermostat her stiff fingers began to bunch handfuls of his shirt, pulling him closer. Why did she persist in fighting him when this was what she wanted? This and a whole lot more.

But apparently satisfied that he had her full attention he raised his head to look at her. ‘And when I’ve finished with your back, I might just let you loose on mine. Have you any problem with that?’

She swallowed hard. The only problems she had were with a heart that was beating erratically, skin that was flushed with more than the heat of the sun and a pulse that pounded in a way not entirely attributable to her recent exertions on the bike. He did that to her every time. How?